CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL An Episcopal Community in the Heart of Houston, Texas
FEBRUARY 2024 CHRISTCHURCHCATHEDRAL.ORG
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Beloved Journey through Lent:
Symbolism, Tradition, and the Weight of Worship at the Cathedral As the Cathedral ushers in the season of Lent, commencing this year on February 14th with Ash Wednesday — members prepare for a transformative journey. The symbols and items associated with worship year-round can evoke deep spiritual contemplation and connection. What most people notice about the change of seasons, according to the Rev. Ed Stein, is the color. Purple hangings at Lent has been the standard since the Council of Trent. However, purple was the color of mourning in the Middle Ages. “If you were a widow, you started with black
and then went to deep violet,” he said. He recalled when Dean Joe Reynolds proposed adopting a medieval English practice of using sackcloth for the Lenten array. Although authentic sackcloth is a type of burlap, the Cathedral opted for a fabric that leaned more towards white. However, the Cathedral did return to the traditional purple.
Color continuity and treasured heirlooms The color of the season is a recurring theme from the superfrontal - which is the piece you
LENTEN JOURNEY, page 6
Dean announces new clergy Dean Nathaniel Katz is pleased to announce that the Rev. Liz Kronenberg has accepted the call to become the Cathedral’s newest canon missioner. Liz was born in Dallas, TX and is the second oldest of five children. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology from Texas A&M University in 2006. A personal quest to explore the faith of her upbringing led her to pursue theological studies, and in 2013 she earned an M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. In 2011 she was commissioned as a Chaplain Candidate into the U.S. Army Reserves, serving as part of the unit ministry team for a signal command. She retired from the military in 2015 and was subsequently ordained as a Deacon in 2017 and then as a Priest in 2018.
REV. KRONENBERG, page 2
THE REV. LIZ KRONENBERG
“And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” – Mark 1:11 These are the words with which our worship life in 2024 began as the Gospel reading appointed for the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord on January 7th. In my sermon that morning, I focused on the concept of belovedness. I suggested these words that come down THE VERY REV. NATHANIEL from heaven are not KATZ meant just for Jesus, but are rather a message for all God’s children. Our identity as God’s beloved, in whom God is well pleased is, in fact, our core identity. It is also the foundation for how we are to approach one another. In my sermon, I challenged our community to make Belovedness the focal point of our community life for this year. We know that this will be a year when we will be confronted with efforts to divide us in nearly every way humanly possible. That became evident to me when I woke up on New Year’s Day to see articles in my news feed anticipating all the potential for conflict, strife and division in the days and months to come. God has given us an antidote to division, and that is Belovedness. When we honor and respect the identity of every human being as God’s Beloved, we make it possible to shift from self-righteousness to righteousness, from discord to concord. When we can manage to live into Belovedness, we put ourselves in the position to do what is ours to do and allow God to guide us into the work God would have us do. Living into Belovedness is not easy. It is not a switch that we can choose to flip on or off. Rather, it is a spiritual muscle
BELOVED, page 3